Ella woke us up promptly at 6:45AM. A whole 10-minutes before my alarm went off the first time. Thankyouverymuchdaughterofmine.

After enjoying some Wonder Pets episodes on DVD and a cup of coffee I ventured out to the church for my first-day in the office. I arrived in time to catch the final minutes of the Academy chapel that was taking place in the sanctuary (our church also has a Pre-K thru 8th grade Christian Academy).

Staff meeting started at 10AM and I enjoyed almost 4-hours of conversation about my role as assistant pastor of youth ministry with Pastor Tim. I learned a lot today. More than enough to fill my already-overflowing brain.

Tonight we headed out for our first grocery shopping trip. $151 later, we came home with too few bags of needed-items.

I’m seriously considering selling a kidney. Plasma?

Today was spent mostly working at making our new house into our new home. By doing that I have been sort of making a mental list of things that we’ve done or need to do to really turn this residence into the Sheets’ home. Maybe you’ll find them humorous:

In no particular order, I present “Stevan’s list of things to do to make a house a home”:

– put at least 2-rolls of toilet paper in each bathroom
– get the tv set up (at least with DVD capabilities)
– get MOST of the boxes empty and things put in their place (or at least close)
– set the living room up first (after making sure the bathroom plumbing works)
– get blankets or some sort of visual-block placed on all windows that would otherwise give your neighbors too-much of a view of the new family
– establish the junk-drawer as soon as possible
– do everything in your power to eat at your kitchen/dining-room table as soon as possible

What would YOU add to the list?

Almost 20-men, women, and teens showed up at our new house this morning. Thankfully we set an alarm, got up and took showers before they got here!

What a team! We had the truck unloaded in less than an hour and began the task of unpacking what we had just packed into boxes days ago!

As I look around the living room I see lots of unopened boxes and lots of opened boxes – our lives are in that “in-between” stage of packed and unpacked. We continually wonder where certain things are here in the house. Thankfully we know where the underwear, deodorant, and soaps are!

First Sunday at Armbrust tomorrow. Lots of new faces for us to run through our in-brain database and do our best to put names with faces. We’ve tried all those mental tricks before but nothing seems to work as well as just asking people to put name tags on their foreheads for a week-or-two. Seriously considering that for our first youth group nights!

My parents were with us here since last night – helping as only parents can do! Dad was my “no questions asked” help and Mom got to play Ella-sitter for most of the morning and into the afternoon – a task she enjoyed thoroughly. From what we heard about their trip home they are about 3.5-hours from us!

We continue thank the Lord for how He has provided through this transition!

I’m typing this from the kitchen counter in our NEW HOME in New Stanton, PA!

What a trip, what an adventure, what a BEAUTIFUL home!

Thanks to those of you who were praying for us through this transition – keep praying – this is a new territory, a new ministry, a new EVERYTHING! We’re excited about what God’s going to use us for here at Armbrust Wesleyan!

Team arrives tomorrow AM to help unpack the heavily-loaded truck (I peeked tonight and from what I quickly saw we had NO casualties from our “professional” stacking methods!)

My parents met us as we pulled into the house tonight just before 8PM. They will be here all day tomorrow to help with the unloading and of course Grand-daughter watching!

We are blessed by our friends and family who have helped us tremendously throughout this transition! Can’t wait to continue making new friends here, too!

Exhausted, stressed, & relieved – Stevan.